







ft 












P REPORT 

UPON THE 

SOUTHERN COAL »»IRON FIELDS 

OF 

COLORADO TEF(F(ITOF{ Y 


BY 


JAMES T. GARDNER. 

GEOGRAPHER 


or 


• S. GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF 
^ THE TERRITORIES. 


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COLORADO SPRINGS, COL.: 

Cur \\ kst Printing and Publishing Company, 

1875. 










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REPORT ON THE SOUTHERN COAL AND IRON FIELDS 

OF COLORADO TERRITORY. 

BY JAMES T. GARDNER, 

Geographer of the U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the 

Territories. 

LETTER TO THE GEOLOGIST IN CHARGE. 

June 21, 1875. 

Sir: — I have the honor to submit my report of a short exami¬ 
nation of the southern coal and iron region of Colorado, made 
between June nth and 18th, 1875, and of some subsequent ex¬ 
periments upon the economic value of the fuels. 

My trip to the Elk and San Juan Mountains and valley of the 
Gunnison River was deferred a few days, that I might if possible 
set at rest the questions, which are just now becoming of great im¬ 
portance, concerning the qualities of the coals from Cuchara River 
to the Raton Mountains. Most facts relating to the geological age, 
extent, thickness, and character of these beds were so well 
described by yourself in your report of 1869, by Prof. Leconte, 
and by Prof. Lesquereux in the Hayden report of 1872, that I can 
expect to add nothing to our knowledge of broader truths, but only 
certain details developed by recent openings at different parts of 
the formation. A very hasty general sketch will therefore serve to 
locate the points of special observation. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

James T. Gardner, 

Geographer of U. S. Geol. and 
Geog. Survey. 

Dr. F. V. Hayden, 

Geologist in charge U. 

S. Geol. and Geog. Sur¬ 
vey of the Territories. 






4 


GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY FROM ARKANSAS 

RIVER TO RATON MOUNTAINS. 

South of the Arkansas River high plateaus which extend along 
the mountain base to Trinidad are physically divided into three 
groups. 

The first division is that belt of country along the foot of 
Wet Mountains, and stretching out from them eastward perhaps 
fifteen miles, bounded on the north by the Arkansas Valley and on 
the south by Huerfano River; a length of about forty miles. On the 
west the bold Wet Mountains, 11,000 to 12,000 feet in absolute 
height, and 6,000 feet above the plains, make a fine front to the 
Rocky Chain of which they are here the outlying range. The coun¬ 
try at their foot is a grassy plateau about 6,000 feet above the 
sea, sloping east, underlaid by nearly horizontal Cetaceous 
sandstone and limestone. Large streams, fed by springs and 
snows of the overlooking mountains, run out to the eastward and 
erode deep valleys in the soft rocks, whose light gray bluffs rise in 
harmonious contrast with the rich verdure of river bottoms. 
Riding southward across the treeless table-land one coming sudden¬ 
ly to the edge of a valley is startled at the beauty lying map-like 
perhaps eighty or one hundred feet below. Picturesque, pearly 
gray bluffs wall on either side a winding bottom from one half to 
one mile broad, the rich alluvial land cultivated and dotted with 
homes as far as the eye can see ; while down through the farms, fol¬ 
lowing sinuous curves of river, are groves of greenest cottonwood 
trees, unequalled in luxuriance of growth and richness of color. 
Six of these valleys, differing in size and value but alike in aspect, 
come eastward from the Wet Mountains. Traveling southward 
from Pueblo on the Arkansas River, and following the stage road 
which is approximately the line where the Denver and Rio Grande 
Railway have already graded for their southern extension, one crosses 
the San Carlos River at twelve miles, 4,900 feet; the Greenhorn at 
twenty miles, 5,800 feet ; two branches of the Granero, 6,000 
feet; the Apache Creek, 5,840 feet, and at thirty-seven miles the 
Huerfano River, 5,800 feet above the sea. The lines of improved 
farms up and down these valleys are best evidence of their ag-l 
ricultural wealth, while cattle and sheep on the intermediate tables I 
tell the story of their productiveness. Should it ever pay to build 

If i 


5 


reservoirs for irrigation, these up-lands will also make fine 
farms. In fact, between the beautiful town site of South 
Pueblo and San Carlos River, the Colorado Central Improvement 
Company have found a natural reservoir to which is staked out a 
ditch from the San Carlos. I found this reservoir and ditch so sit¬ 
uated that many square miles of the plateau land south of Pueblo, 
very level and of a good soil containing much lime, can be irriga¬ 
ted. I am inclined to believe that this table land will prove the 
best for certain kinds of farming. Though between 200 and 300 
feet above the Arkansas River Bottom it is probably less liable to 
late and early frosts and to great changes of temperature from night 
to day. Reflection of heat from the bluffs and protection from 
breezes renders the day heat great while at night a stratum of cold, 
moist air,undisturbed by winds, settles over the water-saturated 
ground of the valley. From the latitude of Pueblo southward to 
Huerfano River I cannot learn that the coal-bearing series of 
rocks have been observed. 

The Huerfano divides districts quite different in topographical 
and geological features. A few miles to the north of it the Wet 
Mountains have abruptly ended in the fine form of Greenhorn Peak, 
12,340 feet high. The Sangre de Cristo Range commences at 
the Arkansas River and runs south-east parallel with the Wet 
Mountains, but being twenty miles west of them is not seen until 
the Huerfano is reached, when the sudden sinking of Greenhorn 
Mountain enables the plateau to sweep round its southern end and 
extend westward ten to fifteen miles further to the Sangre de Cris¬ 
to, or Spanish Range, which from here to New Mexico becomes the 
true front of the Rocky Chain. Against its foot the rocks which 
form the plains are everywhere resting or upturned. Not far be¬ 
yond the Huerfano this flanking belt of plateaus becomes divided 
longitudinally into two parts by a line of eastward fronting bluffs 
tending a little east of south. There are, as it were, two broad 
terraces differing 600 to 1,000 feet in height, the edge of the upper 
being a bold escarpment. This feature is but slightly marked un¬ 
til reaching the Cuchara River when it becomes fully developed; 
and from here southward there is a high belt of park-land ten to 
fifteen miles broad lying along the foot of the mountains toward 
which it gently rises ; while its eastern edge falls first in steep slopes 


then in cliffs, to the grassy plain 600 to 1,000 feet below. The low¬ 
er plateau belt stretches along the base of the bluffs fifty miles, un¬ 
til cut off by the east and west ridge of the Raton Mountains. It 
is a treeless plain of uniform elevation about 6,200 feet, the streams 
running eastward across it and cutting only shallow valleys along 
which are but few cottonwoods. 

The upper or Park Plateau rises gradually from about 6,500 
feet at the Cuchara to 7,300 feet at the Raton Mountains. It is 
not level like the lower, but broken into ridges and eastward run¬ 
ning valleys, eroding deeper and deeper as they appioach 
the cliffs which they generally cut to their base. Beside sand¬ 
stone ridges left from erosion, there is a system of trachytic dykes, 
cutting the country from west to east, which rises often like great 
walls 200 to 300 feet above the surface. All these elevations are so 
disposed that the country is broken into a series of picturesque basins 
whose surface is richly covered with verdure. Between grassy 
glades, over the rougher slopes, above 6,700 feet, are groves of no¬ 
ble pines, while softer swelling knolls are clothed with dense clumps 
of brilliant green oak shrubbery. 

I have often thought that in arrangement and character, the 
vegetation on upper Monument Creek was the most typically park¬ 
like piece of planting I had ever seen in nature. This Park 
Plateau is very similar but more perfect. The sheltered 
beauty of green, sweeping meadows, oak covered hills, and 
the clustering groves of protecting pine, the light rem¬ 
nants of cliff and long dark lines of battlemented dyke walls over¬ 
head, give all the repose, sense of security, and companionship with 
nature that man finds in the most highly cultivated landscape ; while 
to it is added a mystery that no human art inspires. Unseen hands 
ordered these perfect harmonies, unknown and dreaded powers lifted 
those once molten walls. There is distance, too, to draw the eye i 
for only ten miles to the west are the imposing pyramids of the two 
Spanish Peaks, rising in grand isolation and rocky nakedness over 
6,000 feet above their pine-clad bases; while behind follows the long 
procession of glittering summits that cap the Sangre de Cristo or 
Spanish Range, till mountain and cloud are lost together in perspect¬ 
ive. These parks lack only those innumerable brooklets of the 
New England hills, and here and there a little lake, to make them 


7 


complete. Still the plateau mav be called well watered for Western 
foot-hill regions. Between the Cuchara and the Purgatoire Ri\er at 
Trinidad, both plateaus are crossed by the Santa Clara, the Apish- 
pa, and the North and South Branches of the Chicosa. Though 
most of the water of these streams comes from the mountains, there 
are many small branches heading among the ravines of the Park 
Plateau. All of the main valleys are settled, mostly with Mexicans, 
but still there seemed to be enough Americans to look after the pro- 
per development of the country and its political interests. The 
more open bottoms of the lower plateau are well farmed, and those 
of the upper, where the nature of the ground will permit. A large 
part of the wealth of the country must be in the herds of cattle and 
sheep that roam the parks and plains below. Stopping at one of the 
stores on the Apishpa, near where that stream debouches from its 
rocky walled valley of the Park Plateau into the open plain, we 
got from the proprietor the statistics of his business, which will give 
some idea of the product and consumption of this neighborhood. 

In the Spring of 1874 he shipped about 500,000 pounds of 
wheat, 400,000 pounds of corn, and, later in the season, 110,000 
pounds of wool. In 1875 t ^ e w0 °l shipment was 120,000 pounds. 
He sells from $23,000 to $26,000 worth of goods annually, which 
amounts to about 64 wagon loads. Fifteen miles further down 
the river there is another store that does about half as much. 
These two are said to control the business of about forty miles of 
valley. Besides the above named articles, there must be large ship¬ 
ments of hides and sales of cattle. The Apishpa is, however, but 
a narrow valley and small stream compared with the Cuchara, where 
the Park Plateau is so low that the broad, open valley reaches up to 
the very foot of the mountains. Below Walsenburg, which stands 
at the line of low cliffs, the valley is settled for sixteen miles, and 
above for twenty-nine miles. The abundant water of the stream 
brings under irrigation a belt of farms averaging about half a mile 
broad. 

Judging from the yoters at different precincts, the population 
of the Cuchara Valley must be about 2,500. Two-thirds are 
Mexicans. These people, though very industrious, are improvi¬ 
dent. Spending at once all that they make in years of plenty, sure 
suffering follows failure of the crops. Those who work by the day 


* 

£ 

for Americans have a life so much more equable that I am told 
many farmers are anxious to sell their land and find such employ¬ 
ment. The average price of the cultivated farms seemed to be about 
$10 per acre. 

From the condition of the cattle I infer that the country be¬ 
tween the Cuchara and the Raton Mountains is a far better stock 
range than that north of the Huerfano. I thought I saw a steady im¬ 
provement in the appearance of the herds, even to Trinidad, where 
the features that I have been describing end at the largest of all ag¬ 
ricultural valleys of Southeastern Colorado—that of the Purgatoire 
River. At Trinidad the well farmed bottom is about three-fourths 
of a mile broad, but much more might be cultivated with extended 
ditches for which the water supply is here abundant. The land ap¬ 
pears peculiarly rich, being made from the dark cretaceous shales. 
Twelve miles of the valley which I examined were well cultivated, 
and I am told that this line of farms, averaging half a mile broad, 
reaches thirty miles above Trinidad and twenty-four miles below. The 
town is the largest in Southern Colorado, its population being 
about i,600; but the county of which it is the business centre has 
over 9,000 people. Its elevation above the sea is about 6,000 feet. 
The numerous, well stocked stores denote large and prosperous 
trade, but I am told that a major part of the town’s wealth comes 
from cattle and sheep. Its position at the mouth of the principal 
pass over the Raton Mountains, which divide Colorado from New 
Mexico, gives it a certain power to take toll of all who travel this 
great highway. The procession of wool-laden wagons that keeps the 
northeastern road to Las Animas, on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, 
in a cloud of dust, leaves some money in the hands of Trinidad 
traders. Evidently the town is growing, but it is so poorly 
situated, as all Mexican towns are, that I hope the Den¬ 
ver & Rio Grande Railway when it reaches here will build 
a new one on the north side of the river, where an even 
plateau, capable of being well watered, slopes gently toward the river, 
facing the Raton Mountains and the frowning tower of Fisher’s 
Peak but a few miles distant and four or five thousand feet above. 

The old town stands on dreary, broken gravel banks, forever 
waterless and treeless, with the mountains completely hidden. 
Should the market ever demand a large increase in the agricultural 


9 


production of this region south of Huerfano River, the amount of 
irrigable land might be very much added to by using curious natu¬ 
ral reservoirs that are scattered over the higher plains. These basins 
only require to be filled by ditches from the streams in time of 
flood, thus utilizing water now wasted. In the neighborhood of 
Cuchara I saw a number of them, and am told that in this country 
of Huerfano there are thirty known, averaging in area about ioo 
acres each, with a mean depth of 15 feet. Some of those I 
examined were of twice this size and easily reached with ditches, 
i hey are shallow undrained hollows, in the plain, already “puddled’ 
by nature, and which would in a more rainy climate be a series of 
little lakes. 

It will be noticed that the region first described from the Arkan¬ 
sas to the Huerfano is quite similar both in altitude and aspects to 
its southern extension, the Lower Plateau, which reaches Trinidad. 
Both are treeless and grassy and underlaid by nearly level cretaceous 
strata in which are cut valleys of erosion by streams running from 
the mountains eastward. They differ, however, in the .character of 
the erosion. In the north the ridges between the streams are high and 
often broken, the valleys are deeply cut, are cliff walled with sand¬ 
stone, and are luxuriant in growth of cottonwoods; in the south shal¬ 
low valveys are eroded into soft shales, and gently swelling divides 
separate them, while the cottonwoods seem much less numerous. 

The Park Plateau differs essentially from both the others in 
altitude, climate, aspects, and resources. Those picturesque ridges, 
groves, and glades are not more entirely unlike the dreary monoto¬ 
ny of the lower level than are the geological structure and resour¬ 
ces of the two districts. The treeless tract can of itself produce only 
agriculture and grazing ; but the Park Plateau rising above it by 
the sudden step of gray bluffs, has under its timbered surface two 
of the greatest sources of wealth known to modern nations-coal and 
iron. The rocks forming it are the great coal-bearing series of the 
Rocky Mountains ; and it is the very abrupt ending of their 
hard under bed that makes the line of cliffs fromCuchara to Trinidad. 
They were probably stripped from the lower country by action of 
the retiring sea, whose long line of breakers once beat the foot of 
this remarkable escarpment, eating away the softer rocks from be¬ 
low its continuous capping of hard, yellow-gray sandstone. Every- 


io 


where this well marked sandstone is seen to form a coping to the 
wall. Immediately above it lie the principal coals and accompanying 
iron beds. Thev occupy a vertical thickness of strata probably not 
over 250 feet; and extend unbroken from north of the Cuchara 
to the Raton Mountains. How far beyond I do not know. 
The rocks dip west at an angle of from 5 0 to 6°. The streams, all 
cutting across the dip, expose sections that open the coal for work¬ 
ing in every valley. 

This is, of course, the same series* of beds worked in 

Northern Colorado and Wyoming; but the properties of the coal 

in this district from the Cuchara to bevond Trinidad are so differ- 

* 

ent from those known elsewhere in Western America, as to open a 
new era of industry when they shall be developed by railway com¬ 
munication. Chemically they have long been known to contain a 
very small amount of water and large proportions of fixed carbon. 
In the Hayden Report of 1872 are given by Prof, Lesquereux the 
result of analyses of coal from the Raton Mountains and from the 
Chicosa, fifteen miles north of Trinidad. 


Prof. Mallet, of the Bureau of Mines at Denver, has recently 
made a very careful analysis of the average Trinidad coal commer- 
daily brought to that city. The results are as follows:— 



Sp. gr. 

Fix. Car. 

Vol. mat. 

Ash. 

Moisture 

Sulph’r 

Raton Mt. Coal 

I- 3 I 5 

55*40 

23.50 

20.20 

0.90 

0.906 

Trinidad “ 

1.286 

54.10 

26.69 • 

18.99 

.84 


Chicosa “ 

1.26 

57.60 

37-05 

4.20 

1.15 

0.85 


Average about [.29 55 - 7 ° 29.18 14.46 0.96 


From a list of 71 analyses of Far Western coals by Mr. Mar- 
vine, in Hayden Report, 1873: — 


Sp. gr. 

Fix. Car. 

Vol. mat. 

Ash. 

Average of \ 

Canon City Coal f I,2 9 

56.00 

35 *oo 

4.00 

Average of i 

North’n Col. Coal. [ 1 '35 

50.00 

33 -oo 

4.00 

U. P. R. R. Coals. 1.35 

50.00 

40.00 

5.00 


Analysis of Pittsburgh Coal :— 


Moisture. 

5.00 

14.00 


9.00 


Water. 

Bituminous Matter [volatile] 

Fixed Carbon. 

Ash. 


1.30 

31-45 

61.45 

580 


100.00 


Sulphur. . r .o 4 

Specific Gravity. 1.285 


























It will be seen from these tables that the Trinidad and Pitts¬ 
burgh coals compare very favorably, while the Northern Colorado 
varieties have from five to fourteen times as much water; and all 
but the Canon City have nearly six per cent, less fixed carbon. In 
the Hayden Report for 1872, Prof. Lesquereux reports that in the 
Columbus Laboratory the Chicosacoal from fifteen miles north of 
Trinidad was found to give a “hard metallic” coke, not breaking 
into small pieces. The Trinidad coal is being coked every day in 
Denver Gas Works, and experiments hereafter stated show clearly 
that the Cuchara coal will coke. I know of no other 
coals in the western half of America possessing this invaluable 
characteristic, except possibly in Southern Utah ; but here is a coal 
field where the rocks are so nearly horizontal that not less than 50,- 
000 acres of the series can be worked without shafts, unless for ven¬ 
tilation. In the lower 250 feet of coal strata there are 20 feet of 
valuable coal. Hence the total amount of coal the 50,000 acres 
will produce, deducting loss in working, is 1,000,000,000 tons. 

1 cannot but believe that the remarkable qualities of this dis¬ 
trict are due to the metamorphic agencies that filled the dykes cut¬ 
ting the Park Plateau every few miles. Some of these fissures are not 
over three feet broad. They were not made by the dyke matter, as 
is shown by there being no disturbance of the strata; but the rocks 
were cracked by some broadly acting dynamic force, and then the larger 
fissuies filled from below. Must there not have been hundreds of 
smaller ones through which hot gasses alone might rise to act upon the 
coal? I found in the cretaceous shales fissures parallel to the gen¬ 
eral system, that had been filled with infiltrated calcareous matter, 
instead of trachyte injected from below ; proving clearly that the tra- 
chytic eruption was the result and not the cause of the Assuring. I 
took the bearing of many dykes and find them trending from S. 70° 
W. to W. (true). In spite of this extensive Assuring of the country 
I find but slight disturbances of the strata and discovered no faulting. 
Any extensive faults would be easily seen by displacement of the 
well marked beds in the cliffs. 

Certainly in no part of our Rocky Mountain coal fields have 
I seen such evidence of generally diffused quiet eruptive action ; 
large parallel dykes being often only two miles apart, cutting 
the beds without disturbing them. It is impossible not to connect 


I 2 


these agencies with the peculiar qualities of the coal. Where I ex¬ 
amined it in immediate contact with eruptive rock it was changed 
into something resembling soft anthracite. Chemical analysis shows 
it to have eighty per cent, of fixed carbon. At the Placiere Moun¬ 
tains, New Mexico, and in the Elk Mountains, Colorado, true 
anthracite has been formed by dyke contact. I he coal of 
this whole field, from the Cuchara to Raton Mountains, 
seems but an intermediate step in the metamorphism by which 
our hardest Pennsylvania fuels were formed. Already in the Ra¬ 
ton Mountains have been found graphites and a coal resembling an¬ 
thracite, but in which the metamorphic action has proceeded so far 
that the carbon no longer will burn, as is the case in some of the 
New England deposits. .Specimens of this are in my possession for 
analysis. We seem then to have in this field the products of carbon 
metamorphism that lie in either side of true anthracite. It yet 
remains to be proven whether this also may not be found in contact 
with some of the larger dykes. A thorough survey should be made 
and prospecting for it carried out under the direction of a practical 
geologist. 

Everywhere accompanying the coal, imbedded in soft black 
shale, are large kidney-form and thinner layers of calcareous iron ore 
easily picked without blasting. The value of these, in connection 
with coking and free burning coals can hardly be over estimated. 
Concerning the amount of ore in any given number of acres, I am 
not able to make accurate statement for want of sufficient number 
of openings to give an average. 

At a point six or seven miles southwest of Trinidad, Long’s Creek 
has cut a very good section of rocks that lie about 200 feet above 
the heavy sandstone which may be considered the datum plain from 
which to measure the position of coal beds. Here the kidney ore 
was in masses averaging one and a half by four feet. They occupied 
about half the stratum in which they lay, and w r ere therefore equiva¬ 
lent to a continuous bed nine inches thick. Several irregular beds, 
two to three feet in average thickness, w^ere grouped within ten feet 
of the kidney ore stratum. They did not seem as rich in iron as 
the latter. As shown by analysis hereafter given, these ores proba¬ 
bly average thirty-three per cent, iron, which gives 7.5 cubic feet 
to the ton of .ore. Supposing the bed of kidney ore should prove 


13 


to average only six inches thick in iron instead of nine inches 
as found in the section, then 75,000 square feet or 1.72 acres will 
run for one year a furnace using 5,000 tons per annum. This is 
an area of only 276 feet square. Forty acres of land like the 
Long’s Creek section would certainly run a furnace twenty-five 
years. The other sections of the coal series which I saw were five 
or six miles further east and were of the lower beds. 
Here too the black shale contained masses of “kidney ore,” 
but I should judge that they were not as abundant as at Long’s 
Creek. The exposure of strata was, however, so poor that I could 
make no reliable estimate of amounts. The general result of my 
observation is that this series of shales carries more or less calca¬ 
reous, concretionary and stratified iron ore throughout its thickness 
and over the whole area from Trinidad to Cuchara. In some 
places the greatest masses seem to be directly over the heaviest coal 
bed. The following analyses will give some idea of these ores : — 


'ANALYSIS OF IRON ORE NEAR TRINIDAD, BY ANDREW MC GRATH, 


CHEMIST. 


Laboratory of the Pennsylvania Steel Company, ) 
Nos. 1,058, 1,059. J une 2 4> i8 73- I 

Report of an analysis for Pennsylvania Steel Company : — 

Material.iron ore. 

Names and marks furnished and instructions given with sam¬ 
ples 509,510 :— 

“Trinidad No. 1.” 

“Trinidad No. 2.” 

Analysis for Silica, Iron, Alumina, Lime, Magnesia, Sulphur, 
and Phosphorus. 

By whom furnished to chemist - Robert H. Lamborn. 
Date of reception by “ - - April 17th. 

These samples contain: — 

no . 1. no . 2. 


Silica. 

Iron. 

Alumina. 

Lime. 

Magnesia .... 

Sulphur. 

Phosphorus.. . 
Undetermined 


12.000 

42.000, 

T600 

.784. 

• 95 2 - 

trace. 
.083. 
40.582. 


27.50 


72.50 


100.000 100.00 

Remarks. —These samples are a variety of spathic iron ore 
evidently from a coal formation. They contain quite an appreci- 




















M 

able amount of organic or coaly matter. The iron exists partly as 
oxide and partly as carbonate. Number two contains a large 
amount of carbonate of lime and carbonate of magnesia. The 
remainder consists of organic matter, silica, alumina, and a small 
amount of oxide of magnesia. 

(Signed) Andrew McGrath, 

Chemist of Pennsylvania Steel Works. 

It will be remembered that no attempt has yet been made to reg¬ 
ularly examine these beds to determine the average amount, quality, 
and economy of working at different points. The localities which I 
visited two or three miles south-east of Trinidad were coal openings. 
At one of them a small two or three foot vein of good coal had been 
opened and coked in heaps on the ground. Half a mile off Mr. 
James was opening a fine large bed of coal that appeared to lie over 
the small one. I should think the drifts were already in ioo feet. 
He was carrying a face of about seven feet of hard, clear coal in which 
were well developed vertical planes of jointing. By some side 
openings I saw that there was still two feet more of good coal over¬ 
head. The vein of clear, marketable coal is not less than nine feet 
thick. In a very rude way he was making coke in heaps near the 
mouth of the mine. The product had the true metallic lustre, was 
strong and in large pieces. Even this hastily made coke 
would serve many purposes of smelting, except in cases 
where a large percentage of ash is objectionable. No care 
seemed to be taken in selecting the purest part of the bed, but all 
went in together. If only the best of the coal were used the coke 
would contain certainly far less impurity. It is possible that it will 
also have to be washed to free it from slate and earthy matter. Ex¬ 
cept in respect of ash, this Trinidad coke when properly burned 
will answer all metallurgical purposes. I think there can be but 
little doubt that selection and washing will sufficiently reduce the 
percentage of impurity. The difference in the amount of the im¬ 
purity in the various coals in this group will be seen by referring to 
the analysis above given, where, in three specimens examined, the 
range is from four to twenty per cent, of ash. Moreover it 
has been found at Trinidad and Cuchara that the lower parts 
of a vein may coke and the upper part not. In all examination and 
discussion of the merits of these southern coals and cokes care must 
be used to discriminate between the different beds, and even the var- 


*5 


ious divisions of the larger veins. This is clearly proven by the ex¬ 
periments hereafter given, made with Cuchara coals. AttheBlume 
Mine, back of Trinidad, I again saw this large seam, but here it ap¬ 
peared to have more slate, and a sulphur spring was pouring down 
from the roof of the tunnel. The outcrop of this bed is already 
found and opened for many miles east of Trinidad along the foot of 
the Raton Mountains, and drifts may be run in to an indefinite dis¬ 
tance. The mountains themselves are an irregular table-land ridge 
made of the coal series and overlying rocks, doubtless preserved 
from erosion by an overflow of eruptive material which now caps 
them. The ridge trends east and west. Along its northern face the 
coal outcrops for not less than thirteen miles at a height of about 400 
feet above the river. I was not certain that the cuts which I saw ex¬ 
posed all the beds of coal that immediately overlie the hard fucoidal 
sandstone. Five were counted, but there may be more. 

THE CUCHARA COAL. 

It was upon this northern end of the great field that it seemed 
most important to make detailed investigations. The Trinidad 
beds are already known to burn with powerful heat, to coke well, 
and to make excellent gas. Should the same properties be possess¬ 
ed by the part of the field about Cuchara the gain would be very 
great. 

The main line of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway is to run 
southward from Pueblo to the Cuchara River, then turning directly 
west it will cross through the Veta Pass, the great Sangre de Cristo or 
Spanish Range into the San Luis Valley, down which an easy road 
leads to the most fruitful districts of New Mexico. A short branch 
must run up the easy grades of the Rio Grande Valley into the very 
heart of the San Juan Mining Region. San Luis Valley is without coal 
and without the rocks in which the coal occurs. It is circled with 
mountains carrying the precious metals. On its western side mass¬ 
ive groups an hundred miles broad are in many places literally 
ribbed with silver and gold bearing quartz; the long white lines of 
five different fissure veins showing in one oi our photographs of a 
Baker’s Park mountain side. The wide area coveied by these 
districts ; the width and permanent character of their veins , the 
great variety of their mineralization—the ore ranging from low and 
high grade silver bearing galena to Iellurium, assaying at the Den- 


i6 


ver mint $11,000 gold to the ton, all these make it appear that this 
is likely to be one of the leading mineral regions in America. But 
these elevated snow burdened Sierras, rich in ores lack the best fuel for 
working them. They may be taken to Cuchara coal, or 
the coke for smelting and coal for roasting must be brought 
to the foot of the mountains by rail, and the metals come down 
to meet them at the edge of the valley, whose rich agricultural 
lands, inexhaustible water of the Rio Grande, and a temperate 
climate make living cheap and life agreeable. Should the brilliant 
promise of this district be fulfilled, this line from the Cuchara and 
over to Del Norte, where the ores of all that great country may be 
smelted with greatest economy, will be one of the most heavily trav¬ 
eled and freighted lines of Western United States. Coal, coke, and 
iron too must go to supply the blacksmiths and foundries, and the 
great mineralogical works of northern Colorado, perhaps of Wyo¬ 
ming and Utah ; certainly they will go to Pueblo and eastward 
along the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and the Atchison, Topeka & San¬ 
ta Fe Railroad—the coke even to Kansas and Nebraska. Trinidad 
is fifty miles off this inevitable line of traffic—fifty miles further from 
all the great centres of consumption. Could the mines of Cuchara 
supply all needed fuels and ore, how great the saving in time and 
transportation. Feeling the importance of this I made a very careful 
examination of the geological conditions and of each special coal 
bed, taking about 400 pounds from the three principal ones, and 
submitting these fuels to practical tests in Denver. 

I found, one mile above Walsenburg, on the Cuchara River, 
the great fucoidal sandstone forming bold but low hills, the strata 
dipping S. 70° W. (true) at an angle varying from 5 0 to 6°. A series 
of black shales and light sandstones about two hundred and fifty 
feet thick and holding between them the coal beds immediately 
overlay this well-known floor, their highest outcrop being about 
two hundred feet above the river. Then followed sandstones in 
which I saw no coal except one thin bed whose horizon must be 
800 to 900 feet above the other series. The course of the river 
being about N. 70° E., and the underlying sandstone, the coal 
series, and succeeding sandstones dipping S. 70° W., they have long 
westward sloping outcrops on the bold south side of the valley 
and are at last cut by the stream itself. Ascending the river valley 


i7 


we are therefore rising in geological horizon at the rate of about five 
hundred feet to the mile since the fall of the stream is about thirty 
feet per mile. Going westward towards the mountains the dip 
becomes less and less, till at last the whole series, inclining now to 
the eastward, are abruptly upturned against the foot of the range. 
We have therefore a true basin, both edges of which are exposed. 

1 he western side I have not explored. From one to one and a half 
miles above Walsenburg the westward dipping coals are cut by the 
river. Great eruptive dykes running nearly parallel with the 
stream lie on either side of it within a mile. 

Counting from the bottom upward, perpendicular to 
the plain of bedding, within fifty feet of the fucoidal 
sandstone comes the first bed of coal No. i, three feet 
and six inches in thickness; then about thirty to forty 
feet higher, bed No. 2, seven feet and eleven inches thick ; then 
eighty to one hundred feet higher is bed No. 3, with one foot 
and six inches of coal ; and twenty feet higher in bed No. 4, four 
feet and six inches thick ; then, after an intervening ten feet ot 
coaly shale, bed No. 5, two to two and a half feet thick of coal. 
The rock intervening between coalbeds is perhaps one-third black 
shale and the remainder sandstone. There are therefore in this 
group from nineteen and a half to twenty feet of workable coal. 
About two miles further up the river, some two hundred feet higher 
in horizon, I saw the outcrop of another bed, three feet and six 
inches thick, about one foot of which seemed fine, firm coal. On 
bed No. 1, a drift of twenty feet had been run in but the coal still 
showed the disintegrating influences of the surface. The bed is 
quite free from slate. The coal proved to burn well and to coke 
in large pieces. Bed No. 2, the largest of all, is seen in outcrop 
on the river bank and is opened by a shaft thirty-four and a half 
feet deep. At thirty feet this reaches the coal over which lies a 
firm roofing of sandstone. The bed is divided by a clay stratum 
two inches thick. The part below this I call Division “A,” and 
that above it Division “B.” Only the upper nine inches of Divi¬ 
sion “A” shows in the shaft, but its thickness has been found by 
drill to be three feet and three inches, free from slate. That which 
we took for experiment was from just below the clay seam. It 
proved to coke in large pieces. Division “B” is three feet and 


eight inches thick of clear coal, but containing more earthy im¬ 
purity than “A.” Though it showed a tendency to coke, the 
product was only in small pieces from one and a half to two cubic 
inches. The improvement in the coking of this bed as we descend 
from the top to the centre is so great that it is unfortunate that we 
could not reach the bottom of Division “A,” where probably 
the most superior coal for this purpose is to be found. No open¬ 
ings exist on beds Nos. 3 and 5, but on No. 4 a drift has been run 
in twenty feet. This bed has at the bottom two feet of very bril¬ 
liant bituminous looking coal, then ten to twelve inches of slate, 
then one foot and six inches of inferior coal. The coal for 
testing was taken frpm the lower division. It coked in small 
pieces of about one cubic inch. The coals taken to Denver from 
beds 1, 2, and 4 were submitted in my presence to the following 
experiments by Prof. E. J. Mallet, of the Bureau of Mines and 
Metallurgy, Denver:—. 

The first was to test their action as fuels for reverberatory fur¬ 
naces, in Which at present all the Colorado ores are worked. Prof. 
Mallet’s furnace is a double one. The two ore chambers standing 
end to end open into a central fire-box. The flame from this 
divides; one half passing to the right into one ore chamber and 
the other half into the left hand chamber. Flues from the ends of 
them bend round and join over the centre of the furnace where 
they enter an ordinary chimney of the building which is not above 
the usual height of those around. The draft must be far less 
than with the straight flues and tall stacks of regular reducing 
works. The fire box was about two feet deep ; the hearths each six 
feet long. By four doors on the sides of the furnace one could 
watch the condition of the interior. There was of course no artifi¬ 
cial draft. The reverberatortes were first brought to a good heat with 
Canon City coal, then about 100 pounds of crushed galena ore 
from the Prospector Mine in the San Juan District mingled with 
200 pounds of quartz was placed on the left hand hearth, and 100 
pounds of tellurium ore from the Sunshine Mine on 
the other. Salt was then added. The ores were to be 
roasted, for which a very high heat is not required, and the 
Canon City coal seemed to furnish sufficient by heaping 
the fire box six inches above its top. The flame of this coal barely 


reached the flues at the end oi the chambers, and the ore was simply 
kept at a red heat. The fire box was then allowed to become nearly 
empty and re-filled only two-thirds full of Cuchara coal from Beds 
2 and 4. In a few minutes both furnaces were enveloped in a 
sheet of burning gasses that went rearing up the flues. Heat be¬ 
came so intense that the ores had to be pulled back to the chim¬ 
neys, for that left near the “bridge'’ melted down and ran like 
water. Soon the draft had to be closed and the screen over the 
“bridges” lowered to keep the whole mass of ore from becoming 
fluid even at the extreme end of the hearth. The flame and great 
heating power of the coal were now too evident to be mistaken. 
Several experienced metallurgists beside Prof. Mallet were present and 
expressed their entire satisfaction with the performance of the fuel. The 
charges were run through in five and a half hours. 1 he ore con¬ 
tained about $900 silver to the ton. The richness of the gold ore I do 
not know. There was no stopping of the draft by the coal caking 
down on the fire-bars or by clinkers. The fire was twice poked 
underneath during the five and a half hours but otherwise not stirred. 

The Cuchara coal was thus proven to burn with the free 
draught, the long flame, the great heating power necessary tor 
smelting ore in reverberatory furnaces. 

The next experiment was to determine its value tor blacksmithing. 

I took to Mr. Maxev, one of the most experienced blacksmiths in 
Denver, a mixture of “A’ and “B coals from “Bed 2. Alter 
the fire was well started, an inch-and-a-quarter bar of iron was placed 
in the fire and withdrawn in four-and-a-half minutes. It was per¬ 
fectly white hot and drops of fluid iron were falling from it. He said 
it was an excellent welding coal, but owing to the rapidity ot its 
burning might not prove as economical as one with less flame. His 
experience with the Canon City coal is that it is very difficult to weld 
with. He now uses the Trinidad coal at twelve dollars per ton, 
rather than the Canon at seven. Concerning the Cuchara coal, his 
expression was that it 4 ‘heated up one third quicker than the Canon. 

The last experiment was to determine the coking qualities of 
the coals. Four iron pots with perforated covers were prepared by 
Prof. Mallet, each holding about one cubic foot of pulverized coal 
unwashed. Mr. Fay of the Denver Gas Works kindly gave us the 
use of his retorts, assisting also with his matured experience in simi- 


20 


lar experiments. Coals from Bed No. i, from Division “A, and 
Division “B” of No. 2, and from Bed No, 4 were pulverized, put in 
separate vessels, and covered with the perforated lid, upon which lire- 
brick were laid to produce pressure. These iron pots were then 
placed in a fully heated gas retort from which the charge had just 
been drawn. The retort was closed and kept heated lor two and 
a half hours, when the pots were withdrawn, their contents thrown 
on the ground, and water poured over them. Bed No. 1 produced 
a coke in large pieces, of dark color, but permeated with threads of 
metallic lustre. It is strong enough to bear handling, but so light 
that it floats upon water. 

Bed No. 2, Division “A,” gave a coke in large pieces in which 
there had been enough of the running quality for it to take the form 
of the pot. Though a little less Arm than No. 1 it had more of the 
bright metallic matter running through, it and sank in water. Both 
of these, Mr. Fay said, were so promising that he would be willing 
to take a large amount for gas purposes. Until the bottom part of 
Division “A” is tested it is not possible to compare this with Trini¬ 
dad coke ; for it is from this part of the large vein at the James and 
Blume mines that the good coking coal comes. Bed No. 1 will un¬ 
doubtedly coke better when the drift is pushed in beyond the surface 
action. Bed No. 2, Division “B,” gave a coke in small pieces, one 
and one half to two cubic inches, but containing laminae of bright 
metallic carbon. Bed No. 2 gave a coke of the same appearance but 
in smaller pieces. 

To make these cokes with small amount of ash the best paits of 
the beds must be selected and the coal pulverized, washed, and 
coked with the same care as the Connelsville product. Not until 
then can the relative value of the two be compared. An iron 
smelter, to whom I showed cokes No. 1 and No. 2, Division “A,” 
says that even now they will smelt iron. For the small lead 
smelting stacks they can be used without doubt. 

As to the amount of iron in the coal series at the Guchara it is 
difficult to speak. The outcrop of the soft black shales is every¬ 
where covered with soil, just above Bed No. 3 there is, however, a 
short section exposed by river erosion, and here the kidney ore is 
found, in the few feet open to inspection. A little work expended in 


prospecting the hill sides by stripping off the soil at well selected 
localities would soon determine in which of the shales the larger 
deposits lie. 

At Trinidad nature has made so many fine sections of coal and 
iron bearing strata that the presence of ore has been evidenc to all. 
At Cuchara, however, both were until lately unknown and can only 
be examined by artificial openings, owing to the absence of cliffs and 
the covering of soil. When once prospected these beds may prove 
as comparable to the Trinidad in iron as they are in coal. 

In making iron from these calcareous ores it is probable that 
the magnetic ores of Grape Creek, near Canon City, will be brought 
to mix with them. Hematites have also been discovered on the 
western slope of the Sangre De Cristo which could be conveniently 
smelted with this Cuchara coal when the railway reaches Fort Gar¬ 
land. The Cuchara coal fields occupying such a central position as 
regards the spathic iron ore of Trinidad on the south, the Hematites, 
of the Sangre de Cristo on the west, the rich magnetic ores of Canon 
City on the north; that should a good body of kidney ores be found 
in the shales accompanying the coal, this point, from its location on 
the main railroad line, will be likely to be the principal place, for 
iron smelting. The demand for this product in Colorado is already 
great enough to warrant the erection of a furnace and rolling mill. 
A thousand miles of railroad must be kept in repair, and innumer¬ 
able tramways furnished to the mines. The calls of highly developed 
mineral districts, such as seem probable in Southwestern Colorado, 
are for iron in every form. The freight from the East is $26 per 
ton. It seems as if there must be a large margin of profit to the 
manufacturer who skillfully opens the business here. After 1876 
it is estimated that 10,000 tons of rails will be annually required to 
keep up the present roads, while with a revival of business, the 
Denver & Rio Grande Railroad will undoubtedly extend to New 
Mexico and the southwestern mines. 

It seems to me highly improbable that the bulk of the San 
Juan travel will go into the mountains by any other route than that 
of the San Luis Valley. The Animas River, draining Baker’s 
Park to the south, belongs to a river system utterly separated from 
the civilization of Colorado by mountain ranges reaching far into 
New Mexico. The life currents of a mineral region flow to and fro 


22 


from the nearest large centres of mining capital. To it by the 
quickest route go the moneyed men. the labor, the supplies ; 
and in return come precious metal, base lead bullion, copper 
matte, and rich refractory ores seeking buyers. The centres of capi¬ 
tal and of trade, these markets for the mines products, all lie north¬ 
east of the San Juan District. New York, New England, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, Ohio, Illinois, Northern Colorado, and possibly St. 
Louis, will supply the miners by the Union Pacific, the Kansas 
Pacific, and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroads, via Den¬ 
ver and Pueblo. 

Those interested in this district must therefore bend every 
effort toward opening the shortest available line of communication 
wfith Pueblo and Denver, the local centres of trade and capital 
through which the great energetic North will always transact its 
business with Colorado mines. The Rio Grande River heads with¬ 
in five miles of Baker’s Park, the mining centre, from which it is 
separated by a ridge 12,090 feet high or 2,300 feet above the Park 
at Howardsville. From the pass at its head the fall of the river 
as measured by Mr. A. D. Wilson, Topographer of U. S. Geologi¬ 
cal and Geograpical Survey, is 288.9 feet P er m ^ e f° r the first f° ur 
and one half miles to the mouth of Pole Creek ; then for eight 
and a half miles it is 141.1 feet per mile to the mouth of Lost Trail 
Creek; then for fifteen miles to Antelope Park the fall is 40 feet per 
mile, and thence sixty miles to Del Norte it is 18.3 feet per mile. 
The direction of the stream is due east to the San Luis Valley at 
Del Norte. The character of the ground is such as to make it 
an easily graded railroad line for sixty miles. The upper twenty- 
five miles I have not seen, but it is reported as not being difficult 
to build. 

On the north of the San Juan Mountains lies the great oval 
depression of the branches of the Gunnison River. Mineral bear¬ 
ing but impassable mountains wall in this group of fertile valleys. 
The Elk on the north, the San Juan on the south, the Sawatch 
Range on the east are crossed only by passes 11,000 to 12,000 feet 
high, except in one place where the last named mountains sink to 
low rolling ridges, and the Cochetopa Pass leads by low summit 
and easy grades over to the San Luis Valley. 


23 


By the force of insurmountable topographical obstacles all the 
streams of traffic between Northern New Mexico, Southern Colo¬ 
rado, and the old centres of civilization must be turned first into 
the San Luis Valley as into a great receiving basin. Only two fair 
railroad passes connect this with the eastern slope of Colorado; 
one at its northern end, the Puncha Pass; and the other nearly east 
of Del Norte, the Veta Pass. The Puncha leads to the Arkansas 
Valley, down whose almost continuous canons a railroad can only 
be built at great expense. The Veta Pass, however, opens on the 
east at once into the long agricultural valley of the Cuchara River, 
down which the grades do not exceed thirty feet to the mile. 
This will undoubtedly be the first railroad outlet to the San Luis 
Valley and to the mining and New Mexican business. We cannot, 
therefore, overestimate the importance of these Cuchara coal and 
iron fields, over whose very beds the track carrying this great 
traffic must pass, remembering that upon them the whole San Luis 
Valley, with its 500,000 irrigable acres, must depend at least for per¬ 
manent fuel. 


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